'To think they'd sell the franchise and leave the top 150 dealers hanging, I don't think they'll do that,' said Will Churchill, co-owner of the Frank Kent Motor Co., which paid to build the $3.5 million Hummer dealership to GM's specifications. 'They'll do something to help minimize that blow.' This weekend, aides to members of the Senate and House banking committees met to draft legislation that would provide enough money to the auto industry to keep GM and Chrysler afloat for a few months. The accord could dip into loans approved last year to promote fuel efficiency but which haven't been dispensed yet. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has opposed using those funds, said Friday that she might agree if the funds were replenished from a new bailout package or from existing financial rescue programs. The Bush administration on Saturday signaled its support as long as the companies were willing to make the 'difficult decisions' necessary to keep their businesses viable. 'Taxpayers should not be asked to finance assistance for automakers without a strong likelihood that they will be paid back,' said White House press secretary Dana Perino. Dealerships represent one thorny issue facing automakers, whose production capacity currently exceeds what is needed to supply the U.S. car market. Eliminating brands and closing down dealerships is central to their strategy for survival. GM dealers are the biggest target; the company has about four times as many dealerships as Toyota even though the two firms sell about the same number of cars in the United States. GM told Congress last week that it plans to shed 1,700 of its 6,400 dealerships by 2012. Gone are the days when a company would pursue a strategy of making 'a car for every purse and purpose,' as GM's chief executive Alfred Sloan put it in the 1924 annual report. Last week, GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said the company would focus on just four brands that make up 83 percent of the company's sales. But untangling the web of relationships to dealerships could be time-consuming and costly. The car companies established their dealership networks decades ago because they figured that independent businesspeople would work harder than employees, and take on the burden of capital costs for retail buildings. But the arrangement was not without friction. In the 1920s and 1930s, for instance, manufacturers forced dealers to take inventory even in weak markets, and the dealers sought help from state legislatures. Today, state laws set all sorts of rules. In Texas, no two dealers of the same brand can be less than 15 miles apart. In Maine and Florida, dealers can charge auto manufacturers full retail price for parts that manufacturers supply the dealers for warranty repairs. State laws 'keep dealers from getting taken advantage of by manufacturers,' said Churchill, the Fort Worth Hummer dealer. 'It's a David and Goliath situation. It kind of gives the dealers a little bit more muscle.' Now, if an automaker wants to close down a dealer for whatever reason -- known as a 'forced termination' -- it can take from six months to two years, including court appeals. Many analysts say that GM paid more than $1 billion to dealers when it killed off its Oldsmobile line. GM would not say how much it spent. 'It's very cumbersome,' said Tammy Darvish, vice president of Darcars Automotive Group, the country's 16th biggest dealer as ranked by Automotive News. 'When you have voluntary decisions not to make those cars anymore, you in essence are in violation of the franchise agreement. You are in breach of the agreement with the dealer,' said Michael Charapp, an attorney who represents several Washington-area auto dealers. Interviews with area dealers suggest that the price tag would be hefty for any manufacturer. Ford Motor, for example, is trying to consolidate dealerships. 'We have too many dealers,' said Alan Mulally, Ford's chief executive. 'If they're not successful, we can't be successful.' Bankruptcy would give manufacturers more latitude to break franchise agreements and circumvent state laws, one reason why dealers have been lobbying for a federal bailout of the manufacturers. Even then, disentangling automakers and dealers would be difficult. The car manufacturers are financially intertwined with their dealers. Ford's Mulally said that 70 percent of the loans from the company's finance unit cover the cost of dealers' inventories. 'These are independent entrepreneurs,' Mulally said. 'But this is a very, very mutually beneficial relationship. This is the distribution channel ... We are absolutely aligned economically.' Often, car sales franchises own more than one dealership, making it hard for a manufacturer to walk away without harming its own interests. The Fort Worth Hummer dealer, run by Churchill and his sister, just opened a new Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealership building with the help of a $2.2 million loan from GM's finance arm. Dealers spend millions constructing and tailoring their buildings to the needs of a specific brand. With service departments, body shops and show rooms, car dealerships cannot be easily transformed for other uses. 'Whether its Mercedes, Lexus or Infiniti, they will tell you how high the roof line is, what the customers' lounge looks like,' said Charapp, the attorney. 'They all want their own brand experience and tell you what they want their place to look like. It's very expensive.' Dealers have also been trying to rally political support, pointing to their impact on the U.S. economy. A report prepared by the Casesa Shapiro Group for the National Automobile Dealers Association says that the nation's roughly 20,700 dealers have $233.5 billion invested in their businesses, employing and training more than 1.1 million people, and accounting for nearly 20 percent of all retail sales. 'Far from being a burden to the manufacturer it represents, it supports the manufacturer's efforts by providing a vast distribution channel that allows for efficient flow of the manufacturer's product to the public at virtually no cost to the manufacturer,' the report said. GM spokesman Peter Ternes said that 'this doesn't really save a lot of money for the company,' but he said it helped ensure 'healthier dealer points' that can 'can keep facilities fresh.' But dealers say that manufacturers shouldn't be choosing which dealers to close down. 'If dealership runs out of money, they are going to close themselves,' Doetsch said. 'You can't run on zero profitability.' This year alone, 150 GM dealers have gone out of business through 'natural attrition,' Ternes said. Charapp said, 'The manufacturers have had a dealership reduction in place for several years, and it was designed by Charles Darwin.'